


Love More Than Usual

by fridaysblues (taemin)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cute Kids, Kid Fic, M/M, Married Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 01:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 6,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3630771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taemin/pseuds/fridaysblues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of ficlets spanning from Jongin and Chanyeol's relationship in college, right up through their daughter's high school graduation. Indulgent, fluffy domestic/kidfic. Reposted from LJ in chronological order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> college years. former classmates who bumped into each other at a bar one night and chanyeol says, "didn't i have calculus with you?" and jongin says, "how could you possibly remember that? i barely went." and chanyeol looks at jongin's face and wonders if he's got any idea just how stupidly attractive he is.

Chanyeol's drunk, but Jongin's drunker. This is the rationale Chanyeol will give himself later when he wakes up with bruises along his spine from where Jongin pushed him up against the bathroom's door frame and stood on his toes to kiss him, open-mouthed, anxious, tongue tracing the bow of his lower lip before sinking his teeth into it.

He wakes up in the morning feeling as though his head's been trapped in a vice, Jongin curled into his bicep, those full lips pouting with sleep because even though he's hungover he remembers everything.

He wakes again, a little later, to gentle fingers threading through his bangs, pushing them off his forehead. He cracks an eye and Jongin retreats, cheeks pink.

"Sorry."

Chanyeol closes his eyes and pulls him closer, thinking _'this is nice'_ , because it is.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well, shit. Look at this." Jongin's voice is hollow, muffled from the depths of the closet. Chanyeol crawls across the carpet on his elbows, dropping across the threshold with a quiet grunt.

"What? I haven't cleaned this out since I moved in. I have no idea what's in here." He strains his eyes against the dim light of the bare light bulb on the ceiling until the photograph in Jongin's hand swims into view.

"Wow, when was this taken? I don't even remember." He drops his chin against Jongin's knee.

"First night, maybe. Definitely our first week."

"Look how much of a baby face you had."

"Look how drunk I am."

"You? Look at _me_." Chanyeol squints. "Wait. I remember taking this. You had your hand on my dick under the table."

Jongin's eyebrow quirks. "What? No, I didn't."

"No, I remember now! You sat next to me and put your hand between my legs right when Junmyeon was taking the picture."

"That doesn't sound like me," Jongin lies, a smirk crinkling the corners of his eyes.

"Really?" Chanyeol sits up to palm Jongin's inner thigh, eliciting a gasp. "You _always_ used to do this to me in public. Drove me crazy."

Jongin leans his forehead into Chanyeol's temple. "I seem to remember this was your trick, not mine." He swallows loudly. "and it usually worked."

Chanyeol's fingers flex into the soft give of his skin. "Oh, really?"

"Mmm." Jongin's voice is barely a whisper at this point, eyes closed tightly against his spinning vision. his hips shudder a little, pushing upward into Chanyeol's hand. "We really need to finish packing. The movers will be here in an hour and your room's still a mess."

"Well, if we're going to have to clean it anyway, we'd better hurry…" Chanyeol lowers his mouth back into Jongin's lap, hands searching for the waist of his sweatpants.


	3. Chapter 3

It comes later, years after that first night at the bar, when Chanyeol's in the middle of graduate school and Jongin's slogging through a temporary job while he figures out what he wants to do with his life. Jongin comes home even later than Chanyeol does most days and barely makes it to the couch before he's exhaustedly slumping into Chanyeol's shoulder. He relishes the warm hand rubbing circles between his shoulder blades, smoothing away the day's tension.

"Tough day?" Chanyeol murmurs into his hairline.

Jongin nods against his mouth. "I'm sorry I'm late. I just want to go to bed. Can we do that?"

"Go wash up, then. I'll get the lights."

Jongin finally manages to make it to his feet and trails slowly towards the bathroom, socks scuffing loudly against the carpet. He hears Chanyeol banging around their bedroom - probably putting the laundry away or packing his bag for his classes tomorrow -- and he sighs miserably, leaning up against the doorframe. He feels so _guilty_ ; he's usually out of the apartment before Chanyeol's fully awake, and he's never home enough to spend any quality time with him or help with any of the chores.

"What's taking you so long?" Chanyeol's voice echoes from down the hall. Jongin opens his eyes and studies his reflection in the mirror. _Jesus, I'm a wreck,_ he thinks, noting the purpling rings under his eyes.

He nearly misses the black box propped up next to the toothbrush holder. His hand knocks it and he pulls back, confused.

"Chanyeol? Are these your cufflinks?" He opens the box and blinks, taken aback. Before he can open his mouth to say anything, there's an arm snaking around his waist, the other reaching up to help hold the box. There's a ring on the third finger.

"I was thinking," Chanyeol murmurs into the dip of Jongin's neck as he pulls the second ring out of the box and twists it against the light, "if you wanted to, I'd like to marry you."

Jongin doesn't even care that the ring's too big -- he wears it anyway, hands clasping at Chanyeol's face long after they've drifted off to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

"So... you're getting married," Baekhyun repeats blankly. Chanyeol smiles, that one smile he has where you're able to count all of his teeth, reserved for the moments when glee overwhelms him. Baekhyun snickers.

"Man. You guys."

"What about us?" Jongin queries, sliding back into the booth, three pints of beer strategically balanced between splayed fingers. He slides one over to Baekhyun.

"Getting all domestic on me. Whatever happened to being roaming bachelors forever?"

Jongin laughs. "We haven't been out like this with you in months. I'd say we're already pretty domesticated."

"I know!" He slams a hand on the table, beer sloshing wildly out of his glass. "It's fucking lame!"

"Must be nice to be able to go drinking every night and still make it to work on time," Chanyeol tips his head. "Is this one of those perks of working in higher education that they don't tell you about? Should I have gone into academia instead?" He swivels to look at Jongin, a teasing smile on his lips. "We might have to postpone this thing. I'm contemplating a career change."

Baekhyun ignores him. "Next thing you know, you'll be getting a kid and a house in the 'burbs—"

"Whoa, hold on. Who said anything about kids?" Chanyeol takes a long draught from the glass in front of him, nose wrinkled. "It's not a big deal, Baekhyun. Nothing's going to change."

"Sure it is! Forever after, I'm going to think of one of you as the guy who didn't ask me to be his best man first."

Chanyeol and Jongin exchange exasperated glances.


	5. Chapter 5

It's Jongin's first time on a plane and he clutches at Chanyeol's hand the entire flight to LAX, throat tightening with each turbulent lurch. The flight from LA to NYC's more complicated -- Chanyeol's English is better than Jongin's, and when he dozes off in his seat it makes for some awkward encounters as Jongin tries desperately to recall back to high school to remember stupidly simple answers to the questions he's asked. It doesn't help that the flight attendant, some bubbly little thing with a squeaky voice, seems insistent on deleting the concept of spacing in the English language. _willyoubehavingthefishorthechicken?_ she drawls, smiling brightly. He finally gives up and pretends to sleep on Chanyeol's shoulder, just to avoid having to talk to her.

When they arrive, it takes over an hour to find their luggage and locate a shuttle that's heading in the direction of their hotel. Chanyeol's all for settling in for the night to sleep off some of the intense jet lag but Jongin's wired, electrified by the lights and the noise and wants to explore.

"Come on," he pleads. "We get to New York City and the first thing we do is sleep? Our kids are going to make fun of us for this one day."

Chanyeol laughs, eyes still closed. "Kids? Dream on." But he relents, yanks on a sweatshirt and lets Jongin lead him by the fingertips right down 42nd Street into the hub of Times Square, the bloom of neon signs and the crush of bodies swallowing them. They settle on a jazz club; some place called the Iridium that boasts a late show and a decent menu. Jongin picks at his food, suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion, and settles his forehead against Chanyeol's shoulder.

Chanyeol nuzzles into his ear. "Told you we should have stayed in."

Jongin smiles and shakes his head. "we can stay in when we get home. If we're in New York together, let's be _in_ New York."

Chanyeol's charmed. He leans in to suck the breath right out of Jongin's lungs, lips soft and unrelenting.

"What was that for?" Jongin asks under his breath as the waitress comes to clear their plates, eyes averted, smile tight with embarrassment.

Chanyeol shrugs. "I wanted to know if kissing you in New York felt the same as kissing you back home."

"God, did you spend the entire plane ride thinking about that line? You're so sappy." He contemplates this for a moment, studying the architecture of Chanyeol's face before he bursts: "Well? Was it?"

Chanyeol shoots him a shrewd grin. "I wasn't really paying attention. Too much noise in here, I was distracted."

"You're saying you need to do it again, aren't you?"

"For science," Chanyeol confirms, closing the gap between their mouths. Jongin's glad they're sitting down -- he feels his knees go a little weak, his skin suddenly impatient, eager to be _touched_. He knows people are staring, but he finds he doesn't care.


	6. Chapter 6

"It's just the flu," Jongin protests as Chanyeol hovers over their bed with a tray of soup. "C'mon. Seriously. I feel better than I did yesterday. I just want to _sleep_."

"But you haven't eaten anything today."

"What are you, my mother or my husband?"

"Which answer is going to get you to eat the soup?"

A pillow sails past Chanyeol's head, missing him by inches. He frowns. "Drink the tea, at least?"

Jongin manages to hit his mark with the second pillow.

 

●●●

 

When Chanyeol finally relents and puts the soup back in the refrigerator, the mug of tea cooling and stagnant on the bedside table, Jongin sleeps. He's still feverish, but his body's no longer racked by the uncontrollable trembling from the night before and his coughing sounds less painful. Chanyeol draws the sheets up around Jongin's shoulders and tucks them around his coiled shape. In his sleep, something makes him smile.

It's cold outside when he pulls open the sliding door and steps out, holding his guitar in front of him to avoid damaging it. He shivers, zips his sweatshirt up to his chin, and settles in on the swinging love seat they'd inherited from the previous tenants. It's ugly: rusting white aluminum, scratchy green cushions -- but it's something to sit on and it's not as though they'd paid anything for it. The cushions aren't so bad with a protective layer of denim, either.

He sits, nestles his thigh against the body and strums. The cold's messing with the tuning just a little, but he doesn't care too much -- curls his fingers against the strings anyway and just _plays_ (quietly, of course; he didn't want to disturb Jongin in the next room). He doesn't do this nearly as much as they used to. Back before they were married (and _oh God_ , is _that_ reality ever going to completely sink in?), it wasn't uncommon for him to play every day, his fingers sporting rough, thick calluses from the constant practice as he picked through songs and hummed them quietly to himself, waiting for Jongin to get home. These days, real life gets in the way more often than not. The calluses are mostly gone. His fingertips sting, but it's a gratifying kind of pain: easy to ignore.

He's playing an old favorite of his tonight, some American folk musician he'd discovered when he'd been binging heavily on the Jason Mraz station on Pandora. It was cheesy, but it always made him think of Jongin.

Then again, most things made him think of Jongin.

 

●●●

(The next morning, Jongin's fever has finally broken. He comes into the kitchen, shirt still twisted from sleep, and wanders over the refrigerator. He's humming something, very quietly, under his breath as he reaches for the grapefruit juice. Chanyeol's breath catches in his throat as he recognizes it.

"Hey. I didn't wake you up last night, did I? The guitar wasn't too loud?"

Jongin raises an eyebrow. "You were playing last night? Last thing I remember was throwing a pillow at you." He shuts the refrigerator door with his foot. "I took some medicine and I was out like a light. Why?")


	7. Chapter 7

The first few times the subject's broached, they're not really _talking_ about it; they tiptoe around the baby elephant in the room, saying things like, _"well, our kid's going to--"_ and joking that they'll never be caught dead with the obnoxious double-wide strollers that cause pedestrian traffic congestion wherever they go. Jongin forgets to close the stove one evening and Chanyeol bruises his shin, howling about responsibility and childproofing as he flings dishtowels angrily in Jongin's direction.

There are brief flickers in these moments where it almost feels real, that this hypothetical child exists somewhere in the ether, waiting to be summoned. Waiting to complete their family.

It stops being a joke one evening after dinner when Jongin puts his palms on the cool surface of the table and skims them towards Chanyeol's. "I want to do it." His voice is steady, his eyes calm.

Chanyeol sets his mouth in a line and sighs. "I don't know the first thing about kids. Neither do you." One corner of his mouth raises in a smirk. "Kim Jongin, changing diapers. Now _that's_ something I'd pay to see."

"You do what you have to do," Jongin shrugs, and Chanyeol knows that's the end of the discussion. Jongin's made up his mind. They're going to be fathers.

Not that Chanyeol needs much more convincing; he's _scared_ , but the truth is, he feels it just as strongly; his heart stutters as he watches a father hold his daughter's hand as they cross the street and thinks, _yes, we'll do it._


	8. Chapter 8

They bring her home and Jongin's mother stays to show them how to hold her and rub her back when she cries, how to feed her and burp her and change her. "You'll get the hang of it," she comforts Chanyeol as he flings a onesie across the room and growls in frustration, fingers too large and unskilled for the tiny snaps.

At night they sneak in and hang over the side of the crib, the squared bar of the rail digging into their armpits as they drape their arms over the edge and count her fingers and toes over and over again, just to make sure. Sometimes Jongin falls asleep like that, head lolled against Chanyeol's shoulder, an imprint of the carpet deeply ingrained in the skin of his knees when Chanyeol finally draws him to his feet and to bed. Later, when Jongin's peeling himself from between the sheets for the four o'clock feeding, Chanyeol sits up, watching the kitchen light pool under the door. The dull clack of the refrigerator door closing itself, Jongin's creaking whispers to Minyoung as he apologizes for not being better at the dad thing _"but it's a process,"_ he explains, as if she understands. _"Give me some time, I'll get there."_

One of the first nights they're on their own with her she's inconsolable about something. Her diaper's dry, she refuses the bottle, and Jongin's nearly in tears himself with empathetic frustration until Chanyeol gathers her against his chest and stands by the window to rock her, humming something quiet and tuneless until _finally_ she sleeps, still sniffling against her tears as the rise and fall of her body evens out. Jongin leans against the doorframe.

"I was close to calling my mother," he admits. Chanyeol looks up and smiles.

"We've got this."

" _You've_ got this. I'm a mess."

Chanyeol brings her into bed with them that night and they lie vigilant, perfectly still, hoping she won't wake up until it's time to feed her.


	9. Chapter 9

Baekhyun finally comes over to meet her and it's love at first sight. Chanyeol's almost shocked that Baekhyun's so naturally comfortable with children, except that he's practically a child himself sometimes and seems to be permanently operating on their wavelength. She giggles when he pulls faces at her and it's a struggle for him to hand her back at the end of the night. He waves sadly as Jongin carries her into the bedroom to put her down.

"This is really cool," he admits, reclining against the arm of the sofa. "I wasn't so sure when you guys started talking about adoption but... she's pretty cute."

Chanyeol beams.


	10. Chapter 10

The room is quiet for an extended pause as Minyoung considers the information she's just been given. Baekhyun looks up from the crayon diagram he's been sketching for her and shrugs.

"It's true."

"I don't believe you." She scrunches her nose. "I'm here and I don't have a mommy. I have two daddies. How does _that_ work?" Her tone is defiant, challenging him. Her lip tightens in a triumphant grin; she thinks she's caught him in his elaborate lie.

He bites his lip and sighs. "Well, they're going to kill me anyway. Might as well make it worth it."

●●●

Later, he buys her ice cream with the promise that she'll wait a while before having this conversation with her dads. 

"Why?" she asks, her mouth forming a perfect 'o' of surprise as most of her mint chocolate chip ice cream dribbles down her fist. "Do they not know?"


	11. Chapter 11

An especially booming roll of thunder wakes Chanyeol and he lies there for a moment, disoriented. It's late summer, muggy; the windows are cracked open to ease the stifling heat in the bedroom. A moment later, lightning rips through the sky, bathing the room in an eerie blue glow for a split second before disappearing.

His ears strain over the hush of rainfall outside, waiting. As if on cue, there it is: the grating sound of a knob turning, a small voice hissing into the darkness: _"Dad? Appa?"_

"Come here," he whispers, voice crackling with disuse. She folds into his arms, her cold hands clinging around his neck as he pulls her into bed. "Were you scared?"

She nods. "The really loud one woke me up. I couldn't go back to sleep -- I _tried_."

"I'm glad you came in," he closes his eyes and tucks her under his arm. "I was scared, too."

She giggles. " _Appa,_ you're not scared of anything."

"Sure I am. Lots of things. Don't tell Dad, okay? I want him to think I'm brave."

She touches his cheek. "You can always come to my room if you get scared, Appa."

"I can?" he cracks an eye open to look at her. "What if you're scared too? What if I'm going to your room while you're coming to mine? We'll never find each other."

She giggles again. In the bed beside them, Jongin finally stirs, heaving a massive sigh as he rolls over to face them.

"Everything okay?" he croaks, reaching out to smooth his palm across Minyoung's forehead. "Are you sick?"

"Just the thunderstorm," Chanyeol murmurs. "Sorry we woke you. Go back to sleep."

Jongin nods, inching his body closer to drape an arm across Chanyeol's waist, Minyoung safely cuddled in between.

"We should sleep too," Chanyeol says quietly, leaning in to kiss the top of her head. "You think you can?"

No answer. She's already fast asleep.


	12. Chapter 12

The week before Minyoung turns six, Baekhyun has to go out of town to visit family. Every night as she's being tucked into bed she murmurs sleepily: "is he coming tomorrow?" and when the answer's finally _yes_ she throws an excited fit. It takes Jongin an extra hour to coax her to sleep.

They're rethinking the wisdom behind bringing her along to the airport when Baekhyun's flight is delayed - first half an hour, then an hour, now two. Minyoung's dozing in Chanyeol's lap and he's starting to lose the feeling in his left arm.

"I don't remember her ever being this heavy," he says over the top of her head.

"You want me to take her?" Jongin asks, sucking air loudly through the straw of his empty drink.

He shakes his head. "I don't want to wake her up."

"I can't believe you dragged this poor little girl out past her bedtime."

Minyoung's eyes blink open, suddenly awake. "Samchon!" she wriggles out of Chanyeol's lap and dashes towards Baekhyun, who's already crouching on the ground, arms open wide to catch her.

"Jesus," Chanyeol mutters, shrugging his arm to regain some feeling. "She's _never_ that excited to see us."

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I guess? Maybe we should go away for a week." Jongin rises to his feet, laughing.

"Absolutely not." Chanyeol's eyes widen. "She'll end up with a tattoo."

Baekhyun stands up, Minyoung's arms locked around his neck. "Come on, don't you trust me? She's way too young for a tattoo."

"See, I knew he wasn't completely irresponsible." Jongin grins.

"A piercing, maybe."

Chanyeol lunges forward. "Give me back my daughter."


	13. Chapter 13

When the question finally comes, Chanyeol's not prepared for it. Sure, they've rehearsed it a million times, but any sort of mutually agreed-upon answer flies out the window when she asks, "Why do I have two daddies?" and cocks her head to one side. "Other kids at school only have one."

His mouth flaps soundlessly a few times, eyebrows furrowed. "Well, you see," he starts finally, "when two people love each other, they've got a special kind of hug? and--"

Jongin elbows him in the ribs. "What dad means to say is… some boys like girls, and some boys like boys, and some girls like girls, and some girls like boys," he's rambling now, worse than Chanyeol had been, and he can sense her apprehension as she leans forward expectantly, waiting for the punchline. He wishes they'd had the sense to make a script. No -- a videotape! It would have been easier to usher her in front of the television set than doing this on the fly. _Too late now, here we are now,_ he thinks, licking his lips, "and if they wish hard enough, sometimes they're allowed to go to the baby store and pick one out to take home. We wanted to bring you home from the moment we saw you…"

He trails off, looking at Chanyeol helplessly. The train left the tracks so far back in the conversation that he's got no idea how to get back to an answer that an eight year old can understand.

"Oh," she says, shrugging. "I just wanted to know how I'm supposed to know which one of you to bring to dad's day at school." She smiled. "But I already know where babies come from. Uncle Baekhyun told me that a _long_ time ago. But it wasn't--"

"I'm going to kill him," Chanyeol breathes, already reaching for the phone.


	14. Chapter 14

When Minyoung is eleven she tries out for the school play. She expects the lead, is rewarded with the part of villager number six, and cries for an hour straight at the kitchen table, hair fanned out across the placemat.

Jongin eventually convinces her that acting can be fun even if you don't have any lines. he sits in bed with her each evening after she gets home from rehearsal and lets her go into excruciating detail about the backstory she's invented for her character, this villager number six who has twenty children and nine dogs and one goldfish named Baekhyun (Jongin stifles his laughter and makes a mental note to tell Chanyeol later) at home and a husband who works in a coal mine, until her eyelids sink and she can't finish a sentence without yawning.

Opening night comes and Baekhyun comes along (Chanyeol had laughed for twenty minutes about the goldfish when he'd heard but neither of them had bothered to relate the story to his namesake), clutching a bouquet of roses that's nearly as big as Minyoung.

"You spoil her." Chanyeol shakes his head. "It makes us look bad."

"You've got time," Baekhyun says lazily, propping his feet up against the armrest of the chair in front. "Flower shop's across the street. You can make it."

"She's _eleven_ , Baekhyun--"

"Do eleven year olds not like flowers anymore? Did i miss that memo? Everybody loves flowers. Now shut up," he bisects his grin with a stern finger. "Show's about to start."

Ninety minutes later, the curtain's rising and Chanyeol's struggling to pull himself out of the cramped seat, knees stiff from holding the same position for so long.

Jongin puts a hand on Chanyeol's elbow and frowns a little. "I didn't even see her, did you?"

"No, not at all." Chanyeol's eyes are smiling as he struggles to keep a straight face. "She's just so _small_ , I think the other kids blocked her sightlines."

Baekhyun rolls his eyes. "What a bunch of harsh critics. _I_ think she was brilliant. The best part of the whole show."

"Baekhyun, you fell asleep before they'd even made it through the first scene."

He dismisses this with a flap of his hand. "I don't need to see the show to know she's brilliant."

Jongin chuckles. "You really need a kid of your own. You focus _far_ too much of your energy on ours."


	15. Chapter 15

It's after he hears the bathroom door slam the third time that Jongin extricates himself from underneath Chanyeol's snoring dead weight and wanders down the hallway.

"Minyoungie?"

"I'm fine Dad! I — I'm fine."

"I hadn't asked that yet, so… what's really going on? Is the toilet flooding?" He stifles a yawn. It's early, the house cast in charcoal shades, inky shadows still lining the walls. "I told you to come get us—"

"No. It's fine — don't come in—"

He rattles the door knob. "Are you sick?"

"Dad. I'm — I'm okay, I'm going to take a shower."

"You sure?"

"Go back to bed. I'm sorry I woke you."

He stands at the door, listening. The water creaks on after a moment and he retreats back to bed. Chanyeol's holding the covers open and doesn't flinch when Jongin presses his cold, bare feet against Chanyeol's warm shins.

"What was that?"

"I don't know. She's acting strange," Jongin murmurs. "Maybe she's playing around with makeup for school? She knows she's not supposed to."

Chanyeol's laugh sounds like it falls asleep before it's able to completely leave his chest. "At this hour?"

Jongin's phone starts buzzing on the side table. Once — twice — silence. A text message.

"Shit," he groans, hand groping blindly behind him. "If that's fucking Baekhyun — why is everyone awake so early this morning?" He blinks a few times, eyes bleary and scrunched at the display's brightness before he groans and throws the phone to the foot of the bed.

"What? What did Baekhyun want?"

"Wasn't him. It was Minyoung."

"She texted you? From the _bathroom_?"

"She needs one of us to go to the drugstore and get her some pads."

Chanyeol's whine ratchets from his throat like a party favor. "Now? It's so _early_. You go. You already got up once."

"Are we not going to talk about the fact that we now have a woman in the house?"

"Later." Chanyeol rolls away from Jongin, taking his body heat with him. "Try to be quiet when you get back."


	16. Chapter 16

Chanyeol calls Baekhyun at work and Baekhyun can hear the annoyance in his voice before he even knows what's happening.

"Can you go get Minyoung from school?"

Baekhyun looks at his watch. "Now? It's not even lunchtime yet."

"I'd go, but I've got a meeting in twenty minutes; Jongin's in the middle of something at the theatre and isn't answering his phone."

"What happened? Is she okay?"

Chanyeol's sigh lasts for a solid ten seconds before he says, "She got into a fight."

"…she _what_?"

"I don't know. She hit some kid, fractured his nose—principal's already assured me his parents aren't going to press charges but I've been asked to keep her home for the rest of the week."

●●●

She's sitting in the passenger seat of the car, looking very small for her fourteen years—like she used to when she got caught sneaking cookies from the jar, hands folded in her lap, head bowed.

"Minyoungie." He frowns, letting the back of his head fall against the seat. "What happened?"

"Why didn't Dad or Appa come get me?" she snuffles, her eyes flooding with a fresh wave of tears. "Are they really that mad at me?"

Baekhyun's taken aback. "No, no—they just couldn't get away from work." He smiles encouragingly, fishing around in the center console for a packet of tissues he knew he'd tossed there at some point, "Appa called me to make sure you got home safely."

"They're _really_ mad," she says quietly, "I heard the principal talking—"

"They're worried. What were you thinking, fighting with that boy? He's twice your size. And since when is it okay to hit—"

"He was saying things. About—about my family."

"They're just words," he soothes, "don't pay any attention to it."

Minyoung barrels on anyway, mopping at her eyes with the tissue Baekhyun's pushed into her hands. "He was saying that I'd be better off in an orphanage."

Baekhyun flinches. It's not an entirely unfamiliar sentiment to be hurled in their direction, to be sure, but he knows it's the first time she's hearing it from one of her peers instead of from the disapproving parents of certain classmates. Jongin and Chanyeol used to relate these stories to Baekhyun from time to time, usually rolling their eyes at the nerve of these ajummas and _maybe they should worry about teaching their kid some manners and basic hygiene instead_ but it'd been a while since the last incident; Baekhyun had assumed the worst was over.

"Still," he says, finally, but his resolve to scold her is gone.

"He called them perverts and said they belonged in jail. So I punched him." She looks up, "I really didn't mean to break his nose, I _swear_."

Baekhyun looks over at her tiny fists, chuckling at the thought. "That's a mean right hook you've got there, kid." He wants to reprimand her, but he just can't, not when she looks so crestfallen. Instead, he pushes a strand of hair behind her ear and says, "Look. Don't listen to those idiots. No need to get worked up over it. Just tell the teacher and let _them_ deal with it next time?"

"I didn't mean to," she repeats mulishly. "I'm going to be grounded forever when I get home."

"Don't worry, _I'll_ talk to them."

He buys her ice cream on the way home and lets her sit outside to eat it, legs swinging against the crumbling cement of the wall outside the parking garage. Chanyeol's angry when he gets home; less so when he finds out the whole story, rubs the back of his neck guiltily and wonders if they've made a mistake.

"Yes," Baekhyun says simply, putting his hands in his pockets. "You should have signed her up for taekwondo. I'm pretty sure she could have been an Olympic contender," and then after Chanyeol smacks him upside the head: "I'm starting to see where she gets it from!"


	17. Chapter 17

_It's uncanny,_ Chanyeol thinks, as Jongin rolls out from underneath him with the speed and force of a locomotive, _the way kids just seem to sense the most inopportune times to knock on the bedroom door._ After a near-miss when Minyoung was still very young, they'd taken to locking the door _just in case_ and Chanyeol's silently thanking Jongin's fastidiousness when Minyoung's voice comes through the door again.

"Dad? Appa?"

"Fuck," Jongin pants, his eyes screwed tightly shut. "I didn't even know she was home yet. Did you?"

"Obviously not." Chanyeol grits his teeth, erection completely gone even though he'd been panting in Jongin's ear moments earlier about how close he was. He clears his throat, makes his voice go soft like he's just waking up. "Minyoungie? Are you home?"

"Yeah — I'm sorry for waking you guys up, but there's a spider in the bathroom that looks like a tarantula, and I — well — can you —" she fumbles a little bit, clearly embarrassed.

Jongin's already up and tugging on a pair of pyjama pants and a hoodie. Chanyeol reaches out to catch his hand and he smiles.

"It's alright. I think I can handle it." He unlocks the door and swings it open, squinting at Minyoung's silhouette against the hallway light. "So you don't like the new pet we got for you? Ungrateful."

"Dad, come on," she whines, following him down the hallway. Chanyeol listens to the thumping against the wall and the ensuing toilet flush before Jongin's crawling back into bed, shedding clothes as he goes.

"Was it really that big?" Chanyeol murmurs. Jongin snorts.

"You could have put a collar on that fucker and taken it for walks, okay? I don't even know how it got in without ringing the doorbell."

Chanyeol laughs and presses the heels of his hands against his eyelids. "Do you want to —"

"—let's wait until her shower's over and she's in bed," Jongin says before Chanyeol's even finished. "If we're interrupted again and the house isn't on fire, I can't be held responsible for the things I will scream."


	18. Chapter 18

Surprisingly, it's not Baekhyun but Zitao who lets it slip that Minyoung has a boyfriend. They're in the middle of discussing dinner plans for her graduation, Jongin scrawling notes on a napkin, things about reservations and people to call when Tao leans over and says, "Wait. Don't forget Sehun." He says it casually as he's pushing a slice of mango between his teeth, elbows on the table, attention split between the matter at hand and wherever his mind goes when he's bored.

Jongin's hand pauses, pen circling quizzically over the list of names. "Who?"

Baekhyun smacks Tao's bicep with a snapping noise sounds like it stings. "Tao! We _promised_."

Chanyeol pushes his chair back, arms crossing in front of his chest. "you promised _what_ , exactly? And to whom?"

Tao and Baekhyun argue back and forth for a moment in hissed whispers, Jongin and Chanyeol looking on with trepidation, before Baekhyun sighs and shakes his head.

"Man…"

"What?"

"He's her boyfriend."

"He's _really_ polite," Tao cuts in, trying to be helpful. Baekhyun silences him with a fierce look under his eyebrows.

Chanyeol looks faintly stunned. Jongin's not much better. "You've… you've met him already?"

"Already? They've been together since the beginning of the school year."

"When you tell her you know everything, let the record show that Uncle Zitao was the one who threw her under the bus." Baekhyun raises his palms innocently. Jongin lets his forehead rest against the table.

When Minyoung comes in, Jongin tries to play it cool. He's terrible at this, though, and she knows it, her eyes narrowing suspiciously as he asks, "we're planning a dinner for you, is there anyone you'd like to come?"

Her head whips around to stare at Baekhyun, incredulous. "You told them?"

"Minyoungie, we didn't mean--"

She sighs in typical dramatic teenaged fashion -- a haughty, terse noise they'd grown all too familiar with. "Can't i have some privacy? god."

"Do we embarrass you?" Jongin asks, thumb pressed up against his lower lip.

She raises her eyebrows. "Are you kidding? Of course!"

Chanyeol looks hurt. She recognizes, belatedly, that she's answered the wrong question and backtracks.

"No, Appa -- you guys do really embarrassing things! He knows I have two dads. Everyone does." She looks pained, hands reaching out to touch their shoulders. "I know what you're like, the aprons and the karaoke with the serving utensils and always showing everyone my baby pictures and I just -- don't know." She frowns, looking slightly ashamed.

"When are we embarrassing?" Chanyeol scoffs. "And how is _Baekhyun_ the lesser of two evils, here? How does he know before us?"

Jongin's gnawing on his thumbnail, eyes fixed intently on Baekhyun. "Baekhyun. are you letting them sit next to each other on the couch?"

Minyoung wails and puts her hands over her eyes. when Zitao reaches out to stroke her hair, she pulls away, face sullen.

"Come on," he soothes, "we're really sorry."

"My life is _ruined!_ "


	19. Chapter 19

Oh Sehun's a spindly creature, all limbs and knobbly knees, hair streaked with cotton candy pink, face expressionless in that disaffected way that seemed normal among Minyoung's age group.

"Jesus, he's -- something," Chanyeol says into his water glass as Jongin elbows him in the ribs.

"Be nice. She likes him."

It turns out he's not nearly as sour as his pursed lips would suggest, chattering animatedly when prodded for a list of interests. They settle on music -- a safe topic as Sehun's a dancer and Chanyeol's been playing guitar since high school -- and Minyoung finally relaxes enough to choke a few mouthfuls of salad down.

 

After dinner, Minyoung walks him to the door and returns a few minutes later, lipgloss a little smudged, cheeks pink. Chanyeol's ready to go downstairs to talk to him when Jongin pulls him into the kitchen, voice lowered.

"Don't."

"On our _doorstep_?" Chanyeol huffs. "Who raised that animal? I'm going to call his parents--"

"Who raised the animal who just came in grinning like an idiot?" Jongin runs his hands across the edge of the counter. "She's… you remember being that age."

"Yeah, _exactly_."

Jongin finally agrees to talk to her, with the provision that Chanyeol agrees not to press his ear up against the door to listen. She's changed into a sleep shirt and a pair of rolled up basketball shorts, sitting cross-legged on the bed with a hairbrush in her lap when Jongin clears his throat and knocks.

"Come in."

"Hey, Minyoungie," he says, voice soft with affection. "Can we talk for a moment?"

She heaves a sigh. "You don't like him."

"That wasn't what I was going to say." He laughs, sitting on the edge of the bed. "He seems nice enough. As long as he treats you well…"

"He does."

"Appa saw your face when you came back inside. Risky move, don't you think?"

She colors deep red down to the tips of her ears.

"Hey. I was your age. I just -- we've -- we've talked about sex, right?"

"Oh _God_ ," she whines, voice already threatening hysterical tears. "Please don't do this. It was just a goodnight kiss."

"I'm not doing my job if I don't." He leans in and kisses her forehead. "I just want you to be happy and safe."

"I know, dad."

"And if he puts his hands anywhere--"

"--knee him in the balls, Dad, I know," she giggles. "You know that's not going to work forever."

"Yeah, indulge me a little longer." He ruffles her hair. "Feels like yesterday we were bringing you home. I'm not sure we're ready to be parents to an adult, yet."

She leans in and kisses his cheek, her lips lingering slightly before she pulls away. "Thanks, Dad. I love you too."


End file.
